Marxism as a research program in law

Marxist approaches to law have given rise to several points in common as well as several differences. This article intends to structure the Marxist approach to law according to the model of “research program” proposed by Imre Lakatos, combining some hypotheses from the preceding theoretical tradition with others that are new. For example, the precedence of the relations of production and circulation over superstructures and all other aspects of law is taken up as a key element here, but without falling into economic reductionism. The article further introduces the notion of “generative process of discourse” to analyze the evolution of law, and it poses the need to study law in relation to other superstructures, such as the state and ideologies. Moreover, it proposes a heuristic as a methodological design strategy aligned with the program’s central hypotheses.